ARTICLES

None More Moderate

The Mixed Legacy of Archbishop Levada

BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER

In the words of Archbishop Levada, the work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "seeks principally to promote a sound understanding of the content of the Christian faith, as that has been handed on through the Church since the time of Christ, and to assist the Pope and the bishops of the Church throughout the world in the delicate task of clarifying erroneous doctrinal positions when that is judged necessary."

Thus, one would desire from a prefect of the congregation a clear and exact understanding of the Faith and courage and a prudent decisiveness in dealing with those who would compromise it. Has Archbishop Levada displayed these qualities?

Archbishop Levada has a reputation for orthodoxy, at least in some circles. Indeed, many of his writings and statements support this notion. In February 2005, for instance, he issued a pastoral letter for the "Year of the Eucharist," which Pope John Paul II had initiated last October. Though it is the penchant for some theologians to reduce the Sunday Eucharist to a mere meal that provides sustenance for service, Levada in his letter avoided this. Though affirming that the Eucharist strengthens believers to undertake Christ's "mission to prepare the 'new heavens and the new earth'..." for Levada, Sunday Eucharist is worship and adoration. "Sunday is the Lord's Day," wrote Levada, "when the People of God enter into the Sabbath rest of the God of creation to offer Him our praise, our thanks, and our adoration."

Levada's letter is basically a fine reiteration of Catholic sensibility about the Eucharist. Not only do Catholics who "'drift' away from coming to Sunday Mass" miss "the most significant opportunity of life," but participation in the Sunday Eucharist "is not an option, according to the law of God." Quoting canon law, Levada wrote, "unless impeded by a grave cause, all of the faithful are bound to participate in the Sunday Mass."

Levada in his letter insists that our eternal life depends on accepting Christ's invitation to the Sunday Eucharist. And, according to the archbishop, we should render devotion to the Eucharist outside of Mass, in "Eucharistic Adoration, concluded by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament." Levada encouraged every parish to provide Eucharistic adoration in order (in the words of Pope John Paul) "to make reparation by our faith and love for the acts of carelessness and neglect and even the insults which our Savior must endure in many parts of the world."

An example of Levada's thought regarding the defense of the Faith is a lecture he delivered to the University of San Francisco's Saint Ignatius Institute in March 2002 on the necessity for a "new apologetics." Apologetics, along with evangelization and catechesis, has not been a high priority since Vatican II, said Levada. Hence the need to renew it. The "truth," said Levada, that is "the principal focus of apologetics" is that Jesus Christ is "the revelation of the true destiny of all humanity."

But is conversion of unbelievers the final goal of apologetics? Levada's lecture is not entirely clear about this. But in a postscript he wrote to his talk, he suggests the goal in a question he asks about the aim of interreligious dialog. "Is it the same as apologetics," he asks, "to defend and explain, perhaps to persuade and convince, about the truth that one believes?"

Elsewhere, Archbishop Levada has evinced a rather narrow understanding of what constitutes heresy. In some "Reflections" delivered to a meeting of the United States bishops in June 2004, Levada distinguished between those persons who "knowingly reject a divinely revealed truth of faith (e.g. the Trinity or the Eucharist...)" and are thus "in heresy" and those "who do not accept some teaching of the faith that has been definitively (infallibly) taught [as] necessarily connected with divine Revelation, but not expressly and categorically set forth as divinely revealed." The latter rejection (and Levada cited "the evil of abortion" as an example) is seemingly not heresy to Levada; indeed, it would only "affect and diminish" "full communion with the faith and life of the Church." Further, it does not "per se exclude such persons from the reception of the sacraments."

In these "Reflections," Levada was addressing whether or not Catholic politicians who vote for and even promote legislation favoring legal abortion should be denied communion. His conclusion was that if such politicians were guilty of formal cooperation in evil a bishop might refuse them communion, to avoid public scandal. But for Levada, only those politicians or voters who support pro-abortion legislation for the express intention of killing innocent life are guilty of formal cooperation in evil. Those who support abortion for other reasons (i.e., to protect a mother's health, to keep abortion "safe," or for political expediency), though in error, are not guilty of formal cooperation, in Levada's mind. (See "What's a Bishop To Do?" September 2004 Faith.)

Levada's notions of formal cooperation and what constitutes heresy may explain why for so long he kept Father Gerald Coleman rector of the archdiocesan seminary, St. Patrick's in Menlo Park. While Father Coleman has publicly opposed according "marriage" to homosexual couples, he has been in favor of state recognition of homosexual domestic partnerships. "Committed, life-long homosexual partnerships," Coleman has written, should have "an important status, deserving our respect and protection." However, in a 2001 "Open Letter" to the San Francisco Faith, the Los Angeles Mission, and San Diego News Notes, Coleman said homosexual relationships should be "chaste;" but he equated this modifier with "committed," leaving it unclear whether, in the term "chaste," he included refraining from genital activity.

But last year, a close observer of St. Patrick's Seminary told me that the school has been undergoing a quiet renewal in the direction of orthodoxy. It has witnessed, said the observer, "an exodus of heterodox professors," with the most dramatic being the retirement of Father Coleman himself in May 2004. My source attributed these changes to the presence of a growing vocal, orthodox faculty, but also to the "presence of Archbishop Levada," who "stands for certain things that [the heterodox faculty] don't. They're not going to make much headway when he's there.... I can count about half a dozen people who have left since Levada came in."

In the area of liturgy, Levada has stood firm against at least the most radical demands of the inclusive language zealots. As reported in the November 1995 Adoremus Bulletin, Archbishop Levada was among the critics of the "Criteria for the Evaluation of Inclusive Language Translations of Scriptural Texts Proposed for Liturgical Use," the International Commission on English in the Liturgy's proposal for the use of inclusive language in the liturgy. According to Adoremus, Levada said that "these changes amount ... to a massive revision of the basic ritual of the Church's Roman Rite." But the April 1998 issue also noted that Levada was one of the authors of a "compromise" lectionary, which did not go as far as ICEL wanted in introducing inclusive language, but was (in the archbishop 's words) nevertheless "an updated, inclusive language text" — a claim countered by Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, who said the compromise lectionary had been "substantially and radically altered, rendering it no longer an inclusive language text."

Michael Waldstein, president and professor of New Testament at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, in a June 3 e-mail message told me Archbishop Levada has been a strong opponent of inclusive language. Waldstein, who in the late '90s worked with Levada in a commission that, Waldstein said, "worked through the Mass lectionary to resolve issues of inclusive language," found Levada "thoroughly prepared" and "familiar with the key writings on the issue of inclusive language. In the discussion he was perceptive and constructive, taking into account what others said and looking for a solution satisfactory to all." Waldstein said he was "struck by his [Levada's] great strength: when he was really convinced on a point, he met intense pushing from others on the committee with a quiet strength, occasionally a restrained anger that was quite formidable."

San Francisco resident Lee Penn has written several articles detailing Archbishop Levada's connection with an interreligious group, the United Religions Initiative. According to its charter, the initiative's purpose is "to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation" and to "end religiously motivated violence." In the June 2000 Touchstone, Penn points out that the initiative proclaims the hope that it will become "a permanent assembly, with the stature and visibility of the United Nations" encompassing "all religions, spiritual expressions, and indigenous traditions." According to Penn, the United Religions Initiative includes not only some mainline Protestant groups but such as the Wiccans, Druids, the Covenant of the Goddess, and other unlikely groups.

The United Religions, however, does not include the Catholic archdiocese of San Francisco. According to Penn, in 1996 Cardinal Francis Arinze, then head of the pontifical dicastery in charge of interfaith dialogue, declined an invitation to join the initiative. Why? Because, said Arinze, it promotes religious syncretism. While the initiative denies this, San Francisco's Episcopal bishop William Swing, who founded the initiative in 1995, has written in his 1998 book, The Coming United Religions, that "the time comes ... when common language and a common purpose for all religions and spiritual movements must be discerned and agreed upon. Merely respecting and understanding religions is not enough."

Though the San Francisco archdiocese has not formally joined the United Religions Initiative, under Archbishop Levada it has cooperated with it. According to a report written by Penn for the March 22, 2002 Christian Challenge, "several prominent Catholics in the Archdiocese, including the director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, serve on the URI board of directors." The director, when this was written, was Father Gerry O'Rourke, who has since retired. Penn's article describes interfaith forums that took place on January 24, 2002, in which the archdiocese (including the archbishop) and United Religious Initiative board members took part. The interreligious event — held concurrently with the Holy See's Assisi interfaith prayer meeting — concluded with a prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, which included non-Christian prayers and the reading of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Sufi, and Bah'ai holy texts. At the Holy See's Assisi gathering, by contrast, each religious group prays separately and only joins for talks and other non-religious events.

Levada joined Bishop Swing and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Anthony in April 2003 on a ten-day pilgrimage to Canterbury, Rome, and Constantinople. The prelates received audiences with the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Pope John Paul II, and Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew — and Bishop Swing seemed to use these occasions to promote the United Religions Initiative and another of his pet projects, women's ordination. According to a diary written by Swing (found on the website of the Episcopal diocese of San Francisco), Levada, introducing Swing to the pope, mentioned the United Religions Initiative and, in the words of Swing, "how we were working around the world seeking peace among religions.... The Pope spun around toward me moving his hands up and down, saying, 'Blessings, blessings!" (Patriarch Bartholomew's response to Swing was less enthusiastic. Swing wrote that he mentioned to the patriarch "that I have ordained more women than any other bishop in the history of the Church and would be glad to talk about my experience. He said, 'I don't want to know your experience.' That was that.")

Swing's diary also mentions that when the three pilgrims visited Assisi, "Archbishop Levada led a Catholic Mass at the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi, where the lesson was read by Beth Hansen." That is, the Rev. Beth Hansen, an Episcopal priestess.

Despite his calls to be tough on priest molesters, victims' advocates and others have accused Levada of continuing a culture of secrecy and cover-up in dealing with clergy sexual molesters. Some find the case of Father John Conley illustrating. In 1997, Conley walked in on Father James Aylward as he was wrestling with a 15-year-old altar boy in the sacristy of St. Catherine' s parish in Burlingame. Conley reported the matter to the archbishop's office; but Aylward was not removed — Burlingame police, said the archdiocese, had cleared the priest of criminal wrongdoing. Levada did, however, remove Conley from St. Catherine's and assign him to a retreat center in Marin, though the archdiocese has said it was for reasons besides his whistleblowing. Later, though Aylward denied that he had been doing anything more than wrestling with the boy, he confessed that he sometimes derived sexual satisfaction from wrestling with other boys. The archdiocese had to settle with the parents of the altar boy Conley had discovered in the sacristy with Aylward, and Aylward was removed from ministry.

Conley then sued the archdiocese for wrongful dismissal; but in November 2002, the archdiocese reached a secret settlement with Conley before the suit went to trial. In a joint statement issued after the settlement, both sides acknowledged, "the archdiocese and Father Conley have agreed that Father Conley was right in what he did in reporting the incident to police. As subsequent revelations confirmed, Father Conley's instincts regarding the matter [were] correct."

According to the San Francisco Weekly, in the settlement "the archdiocese has 'pre-funded' Conley's retirement. But Conley appears to have done quite well. He retains his privileges as a priest and will soon move into expensive new digs in a two-bedroom flat on a Noe Valley hilltop with sweeping views of the city."

According to the June 6, 2004 Weekly, Levada removed Father Gregory Ingels from St. Bartholomew Church in San Mateo after San Francisco district attorney Terrence Hallinan ordered the archdiocese to turn over records of sexual abuse dating back 75 years. Levada had known since 1996 of allegations that Ingels had orally copulated a teenage boy in Marin County in 1972. Ingels is a prominent canon lawyer and helped in drafting the U.S. bishops' "zero-tolerance" policy toward sexual offenders. Levada also removed from ministry six other priests at the same time.

While archbishop of Portland, Levada retired the Rev. Maurice Grammond from public ministry after learning in 1991 that an altar boy had accused the priest of molesting him. Grammond has been accused molesting more than 50 boys from the 1950s to the late '80s, though Levada said his predecessor in Portland told him nothing of this. But in 1992, Archbishop Levada sent another Portland priest, the Rev. Joseph Bacallieri, to a treatment program for child molesters, reinstating him in parish ministry in 1994. Portland's current archbishop, John Vlazny, removed Bacallieri from ministry in 2002. In the July 16, 2004 Catholic San Francisco, Levada wrote that he had reinstated Bacallieri because "I judged that he had been truly repentant and could be trusted to engage in limited ministry with proper supervision. The Portland Archdiocese received no reports of inappropriate behavior by the priest after his return to limited ministry. Until 2002, when the US Bishops adopted a policy of 'zero tolerance' for any priest offender, such careful reassignment was a legitimate option."

Archbishop Levada has gotten the reputation of a compromiser. An oft-cited case-in-point was his inaction when in 2001 the University of San Francisco fired the two top administrators of the St. Ignatius Institute and altered the orthodox character of Catholic great books program. Levada also came in for much criticism when, in 1997, he reached a compromise on a San Francisco city law that would require businesses or agencies contracting with the city to offer spouse-equivalent insurance benefits to the domestic partners of their employees. In a reply to an opinion piece written by Michael Uhlmann in the March 1997 Crisis, Archbishop Levada wrote that he had opposed the city law and sought to work with then-Mayor Willie Brown to get an exemption from the law for the archdiocese.

But Levada said he was opposed to the city granting special rights for homosexual domestic partners; he was not opposed, he said, to "broadening benefits to help more people gain health insurance, etc.;" In fact, he would support the city in that endeavor. However, he said, if the city government "insisted on forcing the Church agencies to comply with an ordinance aimed at furthering a homosexual agenda to make us recognize domestic partnership as equivalent to marriage, I would take them to court."

Levada didn't take them to court, though; such a course, he said, would be too expensive, lengthy, and have an uncertain result. Instead, the city made a deal with the archdiocese by which domestic partners could receive benefits without the Church having (in Levada's words) "to single out and recognize a category based on such activity as part of our employee benefits." Levada said, "we agreed that agencies and businesses would be in compliance if their benefits packages allowed unmarried persons to designate another legally domiciled person in their household (including blood relatives) to receive benefits equivalent to those already provided for spouses (without reference to a partnership based on sexual identity or activity)."

Levada argued that his compromise benefited everyone: the Church and Catholic agencies, which could "comply with the city law without being forced to recognize a category based on unacceptable sexual criteria;" and the citizens of San Francisco, since many more of them could collect health insurance and other benefits. But this justification did not sit well with all. Uhlmann, in a further response to Levada, noted that such laws, extending "marital benefits to an apparently unlimited class of other relationships ... cannot but further undermine the institution of marriage. It is not clear whether the chief 'beneficiaries' of Levada's compromise will be homosexuals or heterosexual couples living together without benefit of clergy, but he's going to find it hard to sell the virtues of marriage to people who can obtain most of its social and economic (not to mention its sexual) benefits without pledging their troth."

But Levada has remained steadfast in his opposition to homosexual marriage. Last year, when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom allowed the city to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Levada made a public protest. Following an all-night vigil of adoration before the Eucharist, Catholics gathered on April 3 for a march to demonstrate against homosexual marriage. That morning, Archbishop Levada and Oakland's Bishop Allen Vigneron said Mass for the marchers at Sts. Peter and Paul church, in the city. After the Mass, Levada addressed the marchers. "We must keep society on the right track," he said, adding that homosexual marriage is a "regression in society." To "stand up for the bedrock of society — marriage and family," said the archbishop, "the only possible resolution of this is a constitutional amendment." The march then commenced, proceeding through a five-block area of North Beach.

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